Rise of the beneficiary class

WHILE EACH ELECTION is a new story, UP assembly election 2022 marks a historic moment in the political journey of the state.

The most distinct narrative of the election was about the rise of a beneficiary class. It was projected as a progressive identity of the destitute, as it subsides caste and religious differences and attempts to ensure the inclusion of the developmental left-outs. Neither the distribution of benefits through welfare schemes nor the promise of freebies is a new approach. But, in this election, we saw a new political identity being built around distribution of such benefits. The beneficiaries were expected to enhance the core support base of respective parties.

While welfare schemes were meant to address systemic imbalances and societal discrimination, freebies are direct transfers, most often cash that has little ability to offset structural imbalances. They are a simple distribution that creates a spectacle and helps construct a perception of benevolence and arrest anger against the government. Kisan Samman Yojana, launched before the Lok Sabha election of 2019, had done wonders for the BJP. Learning from that experience, the government tried to put out the fire of discontent on account of loss of livelihood during the pandemic, rising prices and the stray cattle menace by distributing free food grains and making cash transfers through Shram Shakti cards.

This is neither welfare nor redistribution, but all political parties are likely to continue making efforts to outdo each other on this plank. These tactics gained relevance in the context of heightening internal differentiation among castes, making it difficult for the political parties to reach out to the community only on the caste identity. Caste needed a supplementary identity that is universal as well as differentiated. Thus came the beneficiary class.

The middle class, largely dominated by upper castes, does not enter electoral politics seeking freebies. They are driven by national pride, better urban infrastructure and policies that can further their interests in the global village. The rustic flavours of SP and BSP politics were never to their liking and this had forced them to abstain from active politics. The arrival of the BJP gave them the chance to regain the lost ground. Their hold over information technology gives them space to acquire the role of opinion makers. Virtual campaigning in this election facilitated their perspective to hold centrestage.

Freebies have an appeal at the bottom of caste and class hierarchy, but the charm of communalism runs top-down. It finds its strongest resonance among the upper castes, and milder among dalits. During our fieldwork we rarely found dalits indulging in Hindu-Muslim talk, or mentioning the Ram temple, hijab or love jihad, issues that are the staple political diet of the urban middle class, upper castes and other dominant castes in rural areas. Their justification for support to the BJP might begin from anywhere, be it nationalism or development, but soon veers towards Hindus and Muslims.

The most potent challenge to communalism comes not from secularism but from social justice. There is a strong realisation among backward castes and dalits that, under the Hindutva umbrella, they essentially get numerical representation but not a substantive share in power. This has led to a shifting of ground in this election, with several OBC leaders leaving the BJP for the SP. This churning has also brought the Muslims back in the political arena with a bang. They were no longer seen as irrelevant, if not outright liability for a party. There was, however, limited political enthusiasm to reach out to the dalits. While the core voters of the BSP backed the party, they remained politically sidelined because of its unimaginative political strategy.

The writers are social scientists at the Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow.